Objectives
Discover how an election works by organizing a fictional poll and using their ‘right to vote’.
Description
- During this activity, the students will experience a simulated election that they will organize themselves.
- The election materials will be made by the organizer with the help of the participants and using the templates and guides provided in the appendices. If time is tight, teaching staff can take on some or all of the organizational tasks (this option is however less education for the students).
Major Skills Aquired
Carry out a group project
Core Competency Areas
Area 3: Personal and civic growth
Responsibility, sense of commitment and initiative
Area 2: Methods and tools for learning
Cooperation and creating projects
Duration
Resources
To find out more about the electoral process, see the website of the French Ministry of the Interior (in French) : How to vote?
Required Materials
- Voting booth or seperate room
- One or more ballot boxes
- Ballots with the name or lists of candidates for the elections printed or photocopied
- Envelopes
- The electoral register of voters
- A polling card for each voter
- File attached (PDF), listing the various documents you will need for this activity:
- Methodology for the drawing up an electoral register.
- Polling card template
- A reminder of the voting steps
- A template of the counting sheet
Suggested Method
BEFORE YOU BEGIN (-) :
Note: Allow 2 hours to 5 hours on the entire activity, depending on how much you want to involve participants in organising the election, particularly before the poll. Allow time for:
- Preparing materials
- Setting up the polling station
- The vote
- Counting the ballots
- Publishing results once the election is over
STEP 1 (-) :
Set a date for election day taking into consideration school holidays as well as the date of the real elections (it’s more interesting for participants to organise the simulated elections before the real elections are held)
STEP 2 (1h) :
Before the elections
- With participants, come up with a list of tasks to be completed before the elections can take place: What do we need?
- Next, set up an organising committee and allocate tasks within the group.
We recommend the following tasks:
- Draw up an electoral register (see attached file in appendices: Methodology for the drawing up an electoral register).
NB: For ‘Électeurs en herbe’ activities, all participants can vote, regardless of, for example, their nationality. We will not ask for voters to provide formal ID, just their polling card.
- Prepare ballots and envelopes.
- Prepare polling cards (see attached file in appendices: polling card template)
- On the day, prepare the room with a ballot box and voting booths.
- Prepare a step-by-step poster for how to vote (using the appendix Voting Step by Step)
- Plan and organize publicity around the election (putting up posters around the school or organization, use the ‘Électeurs en herbe’ Facebook page or website, etc. See activity Communicating about the elections)
- Determine who will be in charge of counting the votes. NB: Think about the record of the count (see the attached file: Count register)
- Check task progress before election day.
STEP 3 (1-3h) :
POLLING DAY (allow 1 to 3 hours depending on the number of participants)
- Help the ‘set-up’ team set up the room
- Hold the vote (see appendix Voting Step by Step)
STEP 4 (1-3h) :
AFTER THE POLL(Allow 1 to 3 hours depending on the involvement you want from participants)
- Count the votes with the ‘counting’ team
- Communicating Results
- For example you can ask participants to create communications media to publish the results:
- Make posters
- Write an article for the school or organization newspaper or website
- Potentially could include communicating results to local press if the school or organization agrees
- Publishing a report on the ‘Electeurs en herbe’ website or on their Facebook page
Variants and Extensions
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Discussions and Perspectives
See Lesson Plan 5 from step 4: After the vote.
Appendices
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